Month: December 2016

Elsewhere: A Sticky End

Maintaining the tradition of ensuring a copy of things I post elsewhere are also saved here, earlier today I posted on Facebook about the branding of a company I used to work for:

If the sponsored posts on Facebook are accurate, sometime in the next 24 hours the brand name of a company I used to work for, StickyADS.tv, will disappear as it becomes more fully part of its new parent, Freewheel. Or something like that. They don’t tell me the details.

I spent 18 months working for them as the business grew from one that was primarily focussed on France to one that expanded to Europe and, as I was leaving, an office opened in New York to address the needs of American customers. Earlier this year the company was acquired by Freewheel and, I guess, this is the next part of the coming together of the businesses.

As the StickyADS.tv brand is phased out, and having seen the sponsored post almost every time I open my Facebook app, one thing really struck me that I never truly appreciated during the period I was working there: how well the branding works and how expertly it is used. I don’t recall exactly when the current look & logo were introduced but it’s executed consistently well across all channels. From exhibition stands at major events, to laptop stickers, corporate videos or company presentations there is a consistency that you don’t see that often outside of the biggest companies.

Attaching the logo to the wall of the London office, while levelling the letters and managing the spacing, caused much hilarity for Greg and me in the summer of 2015.

Somewhere, I hope, there’s a cupboard that holds copies of the adtech brands that have disappeared over the years I have worked in this industry (“Engage: Like Never Before,” anyone?). If there is, I imagine the last StickyADS.tv branding will a shining beacon in the vast sea of logos that are no longer in use. I can’t even write the name of the company without automatically capitalising the ADS portion and including the dot-tv; I can’t recall how many times I was reminded about that.

No doubt, today, there’s a larger team of people behind it but Marie should be really happy with all the work she — and all the marketing team — have done to build and represent a brand.

Good luck, Stickers, with the next phase of your adventure.

FreeWheel Acquires StickyAds to Build Full-Stack Programmatic Video Markeplace

Bursting The Bubble of Doom

Digital advertising in 2017? You’d be forgiven for thinking that any light at the end of the tunnel is an unstoppable train that’s coming to mow us all down.

Today, right on the front page of this site, in the blurb I wrote about myself, it says, “I’ve spent over 15 years helping European publishers apply rapidly changing ad technology to help manage online advertising but, as it’s the day job, it’s not all I (occasionally) write about.”

I just looked and it seems that I have not written – at least, not written here – about digital advertising since 27th August 2014. I used to write a lot more: there’s a whole category that houses past ramblings but, in spite of (or, perhaps, because of ) the constant changes in the industry I haven’t hit a keyboard on the topic in a while.

I do have a FlipBoard Magazine on the topic, which I recently noticed you can read in a browser as well as through their apps (hint, you should subscribe). I use this to post articles on digital advertising that I find most interesting and it serves as a good reference book for me. After a quick scan over some of the industry headlines from the past year and I can see why I haven’t really written anything:

  • Everyone Disgusted With Ad Industry (adcontrarian)
  • Where did the money go? Guardian buys its own ad inventory (The Guardian)
  • What media companies don’t want you to know about ad blockers (Columbia Journalism Review)
  • Banner ads are dead because your phone killed them (Recode)
  • Internet Video Views Is A 100 Percent Bullshit Metric (Gawker)

You’d be forgiven for thinking that any light at the end of the tunnel is an unstoppable train that’s coming to mow us all down. When you add this bubble of doom to the wider political landscape (“London tech and media companies may bolt in the wake of Brexit“) then you’d be forgiven for scanning LinkedIn for a whole new industry to work in.

But, on my last working day of the year, I wanted to end the year with the thought that it’s not all as the headlines portray. There are good things to come.

Unlike previous years where I gazed in into the crystal ball for you (like here and here), I am leaving it to others to interpret the tea leaves for 2017. In summary, as Coull predicts, “2016 delivered transparency, in 2017 we’ll see action emerge from insight.”

  • AI will drive the majority of programmatic innovation (ExchangeWire)
  • Marketers will return to their heartland of strategic creativity (ExchangeWire)
  • Bringing sexy creative back (Adotas)
  • Header bidding will become more accessible (Ve Interactive)

What else might change in 2017? Well, this week an AdExchanger article noted, “One thing few people seem to want to discuss publicly is that the current suite of vendors benefit from the discrepancies that plague the market.” Are we at a tipping point where standardisation means more than just everybody showing the same 728×90 banner? Let’s hope so – it’s about time.

Then, of course, there’s new ad-tech. I think there’s a lot of innovation still to come in the space yet, look at Amazon:

We have been open, transparent and in constant communication with advertisers for 10 years, if you include the managed service. We’ve been iterating and bringing more value to those advertisers. Our focus hasn’t been on making noise but on listening to advertisers and doing what’s best for them. [Source: Adexchanger]

After all this, I’m still to be convinced that next year, “Programmatic TV will come of age“. I guess only the New Year will tell. I’m looking forward to finding out.

Merry Christmas.